The reservation was made. The car was overpacked (my fault, because being prepared is way less stress than not having what we need), and we were ready to go.
It was the first night Jeff and I had alone together out of town in months.
Not knowing exactly what to expect, since we had never been to that campground before – and Google tried to throw us off a bit with the directions – we were not disappointed with the campsite. It wasn’t crowded, and it was quiet, which is exactly what we needed. The air was clean. The canopy went up easily. The space for the tent was mostly flat and the ground beneath it was smooth.
Jeff went to start the fire, and I started setting up the sleeping situation inside the tent. I spread out the self-inflating air mattresses and let them do their thing while I zipped the sleeping bags together.
Then I checked on the mattresses. They both had inflated, so I went to tighten the first valve – which was broken, so it wouldn’t close and air could still escape.
Awesome. Because that is the entire point of an air mattress.
Then I checked the second mattress, and that valve was broken too.
Clearly, they were a solid investment.
“So the good news is we have air mattresses, since we finally bought them last year,” I told Jeff. “The bad news is both of the valves are broken so they are pretty much useless.” I mean, without the air, what are air mattresses other than small tarps?
The hard ground and lack of sleep that night was not great. But the cooler temperatures, time away with Jeff, and talking by the campfire while roasting marshmallows made up for it. And that we hadn’t been able to book a second night turned out to be a good thing.
That’s camping.
Something always goes wrong, but it’s worth it anyway.
